The business behind the show

Is 'Family Guy' creator Seth MacFarlane taunting the FCC?

May 4, 2010 | 2:32
pm

Has "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane been boning up on the Federal Communications Commission's indecency rules?

That's what the folks at the Parents Television Council think. The media watchdog group, which has made a business out of bashing the raunchy cartoon, says the episode that aired Sunday seemed to be spitting in the face of FCC rules when it comes to excretory matter and demanded the regulatory agency investigate the show.

In the episode, which happened to be the show's 150th, baby Stewie has Brian the dog clean him and his dirty diaper. Since some of you might be eating, we won't quote the script directly but let's just say Stewie spells out quite specifically what it is he wants Brian to do. After Brian does it, Stewie throws up and then tells Brian, "Got some dessert for you."

According to the FCC's indecency regulations,"material is indecent if, in context, it depicts or describes sexual or
excretory organs or activities in terms patently offensive as measured
by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium."

"It seems as though ‘Family Guy’ creator, Seth
MacFarlane, carefully reviewed the legal definition of broadcast
indecency and set out to violate it as literally as he could," said PTC President Tim Winter.

There are already hundreds of thousands of complaints about "Family Guy" at the FCC, many of them no doubt generated by advocacy groups looking to get the show tossed from the airwaves. Of course, MacFarlane certainly provides plenty of material for his enemies.He even once penned a song mocking the FCC, as one of our readers reminded us.

Besides the FCC, Winter said the PTC will go after the corporate sponsors that "underwrote this feces-eating broadcast,
ironically a number of which were restaurants.”

A Fox spokesman had no comment. MacFarlane could not immediately be reached for comment.